What Happens When the Latest Climate Porn Ends?

How inconvenient. I go away on vacation for a few weeks and during that time everybody, it seems, becomes convinced that global warming has struck the earth like the Ten Plagues of Egypt. So does this mean the message (unabated carbon emissions = climate damnation) finally--finally!--has been received by 1) the media, 2) all earthlings (except faithful readers of WUWT and Climate Depot), 3) President Obama, and 4) China, India et al? I know you've been waiting anxiously for my return so I can answer these crucial questions. I will not disappoint. But first, let me say that during my vacation I was disconnected from what was happening in major regions across the United States. From June 28 to July 14, me and the family were (mostly) in Northern California, where the skies were blue (except for that charming San Francisco fog), and the weather was calm and comfortable. Now I am aware that I was in some sort of climatic Twilight Zone for two and half weeks, since nearly every morning I'd wake up to headlines in USA Today about the rest of the country being tormented by historic heat waves, power outages, and catastrophic fires. By the end of week one of our vacation, my Google news alert on climate change was ringing with stories that linked all the misery and disasters--either directly or indirectly--to global warming. Sneaking an occasional peek at my twitter feed on July 3 (I took a vow of no blogging or tweeting), I learned from some journalists and Penn State's Michael Mann that the media was offering up "teachable moments":